Tag: events

Planning Ahead: Spring Kickoff

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Our normal rhythm for programming around Christmas and New Year is to take two weeks off as the majority of our students and families are either celebrating, traveling, or both. Combine that with Thanksgiving and the traditional rhythm will be askew for a couple of months.

So when we come back in January, we kickoff the spring semester with a celebration and unique flair. The purpose is to welcome students back, get them excited for the new semester, have a lot of fun, and to provide an easy opportunity for them to invite their friends too.

In order to accomplish this and to do it well, it is highly important to begin planning this well in advance. If your ministry functions in the same manner, I want to share with you ways you can begin preparing for that event now.

Figure out the main draw.

You need to think through each element of your event, but knowing what the main draw is allows you to clearly shape the event and communicate effectively. Simply telling your students to come to a spring kickoff without any details or reason leaves them wondering if they should and if they should invite their friends.

Students don’t want their friends to be bored, disappointed, or apprehensive about coming to church, so giving them information about the event is key. This also allows you to utilize your vision and purpose for your ministry in how you shape the event.

When you allow the identity of your ministry to inform what the main draw is, it further reinforces your vision and helps your students, families, and leaders have more buy-in.

Build out the schedule.

Having a schedule and flow for your event is key. Not only does this help you figure out the timing of everything, it gives structure and guidance to your team.

It’s important to know where things will take place and for how long, to know what is happening and when. Doing this allows the event to flow smoothly and effectively as you have planned and prepared well ahead of time.

Prepare your leaders.

When you’re thinking through your spring kickoff, make sure to bring your leaders into the planning process. If there’s aspects they can contribute to, ask them to help.

If there’s a specific action leaders need to take prior to the kickoff (i.e., downloading a specific app, bringing a dessert, arriving a little early, managing a game or activity, etc.), make sure to prepare them well in advance and be willing to help them if needed.

Recruit when needed.

If your event requires additional hands or more leaders, recruiting earlier is always better and it alleviates last-minute panicking. It’s always better to be prepared ahead of time instead of trying to find someone the day or week before an event. This could include recruiting people to serve food, welcome students, manage stations, or pitch in wherever you need to additional support.

Utilize students.

We have a student band that has just recently been formed and it has been received with a lot of excitement. In order to help them succeed and for the event to go well, we want to bring them into the planning process and ask them to lead worship. But with students being as busy as they are, it is highly important to bring them into the process and planning as early as possible.

Planning Ahead: Christmas Parties

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School has just started back up for our students, and it may seem a little early to start talking about Christmas. It still feels like summer here in Pennsylvania. But remember that once the back to school advertisements end, we need to be prepared for Christmas adds to start dropping—whether it’s commercials, ads online, or walking through stores and seeing Christmas displays slowly popping up.

With that in mind, we need to look ahead to the Christmas season and all that entails for student ministries. One of the big events that student ministries typically look toward at Christmas time are Christmas parties. It’s important to begin thinking through the essential details so you can start planning now and purchase your items ahead of time.

So what do you need to start planning?

Communication.

When you figure out your Christmas party well ahead of time, you are able to communicate this to your students, leaders, and families so they can coordinate their schedules and make sure they can attend.

It also allows you to build anticipation and excitement about the party among your students, which in turn allows them to share that information with their friends so they can invite them along to the party.

The theme and feel for your party.

Are you doing a white elephant gift exchange? Is everyone wearing an ugly Christmas sweater? Is the party more casual or more structured?

Whatever you decide to do, picking a theme and feel ahead of time allows you to begin preparing and shaping the party now. You can start thinking through activities and games, purchasing supplies, and enlisting the help you need.

This also allows you to think through your schedule and where you’d like different elements to be. You will also able to intentionally shape this event and its elements to reflect your ministry’s vision.

Timing.

When it comes to special events the schedule may be different to accommodate your plans. You may start earlier or go longer than normal.

As you think through your event, it’s important to figure out any timing changes so you can communicate that out to families well in advance. Figuring out your event timing also allows you to build structure and organization into your plans to make sure you have enough time for what you’re seeking to do.

Special elements.

These types of events have special elements to them. Whether it’s a gift exchange, some sort of costumes, worship, a guest speaker, unique snacks, or a special theme, competition, or prize, when you think well ahead of time it allows you to get more creative with what you are doing.

Games and supplies.

Once your schedule is finalized and you know what games you will be playing or activities you’ll be hosting, you can begin purchasing supplies.

Typically, holiday supplies are more expensive during the holidays. Buying holiday supplies outside of the holiday schedule means you may actually be able to save some money and find some deals. So building out your games and activities ahead of time helps you to be more creative and proactive with your budget.

Snacks.

Snacks at Christmas are always special because they help evoke the holiday spirit and make your event feel special. If you know what you’re doing for snacks ahead of time, you can do some unique and special things for students.

You could ask people in the church to bake cookies, which as a baker the more time you have to prepare the better. You could purchase supplies to decorate your own Christmas cookies or gingerbread people. There’s the classic hot cocoa bar that you could make into a build-your-own extreme cocoa. You could do breakfast for dinner or even a Christmas dinner depending on the size of your group and your budget.

Planning Ahead: Senior Commissioning

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It is never too early to begin preparing to honor your seniors. I am a firm believer that when we celebrate our graduates it should be more than simply marching them on stage and presenting them to the congregation. These are young adults that we have poured into for years through the discipleship process and we are now sending them out as ambassadors for the kingdom of heaven.

This isn’t just a celebration, it’s a commissioning. We are sending students all over the world in a variety of spheres, and they will have limitless opportunities to reach others with the Good News. That means we must be intentional, thoughtful, and relational in how we commission them, which requires planning ahead to ensure success and intentionality.

No matter how many seniors you have, you should begin preparing in January of their graduation year. Stepping into these moments and thoughtfully preparing for them will help make them thoughtful and intentional. Here are a few key ways to make this time special for your seniors.

Make it intentional and thoughtful.

I’ve referenced this a handful of times in this post but I haven’t shared how we actually do this. You know your students and families. You have sojourned with these young adults through the ups and downs of their lives. You know their stories.

What I’m saying is this: you know how to best make this moment intentional. You know what speaks best to your students and what will encourage them.

You can do this through a church-wide commissioning where they are prayed over. It may be through honoring and celebrating them at youth group. You could allow your seniors to share their anecdotes and encouragements to their peers at a senior night. You could put together a special brochure honoring your graduates, send them a personal card, or provide a special night for their small group.

These moments are up to you, but the intentionality and thoughtfulness you put into them will help honor and celebrate your graduates.

Provide next steps.

I’ll be honest with you and share that this was something I didn’t always do well. When we were serving in Iowa, I just assumed our college ministry would automatically pick up where we left off, but that wasn’t the case. I’ve learned we need to provide next steps to ensure our students have opportunities to continue connecting with the local church.

For graduating seniors, you have put in seven or more years building relational equity and trust. That means that your insight and voice matter when helping students take next steps. Intentionally connect them with your college and young adult ministries. Utilize college ministries for those going to college. Find opportunities for students to serve in your church and where they are going.

Next steps aren’t just about a handoff, it’s about continuing the discipleship process in meaningful ways to help your graduates thrive.

Utilize the body.

This is something we have started to do at our church and I love it because it helps our students to see they are supported and loved, and also an important part of the church.

One of the ways we utilize the body is by having them pray over our students during the commissioning. It’s a powerful moment as we ask for families, friends, small group leaders, and others who have walked with these students to come and lay hands on them as we send them out on mission.

We also ask our entire church body to stand and pray for our graduates as we commission them and for them to commit to being for our seniors as they continue to grow. You could also utilize the church to help honor your students by asking them to host a meal for the seniors and families. You could also ask for the church staff and church as a whole to sign cards and commit to praying for the graduates.

Create intentional moments for families.

When I think about our senior commissioning, I’m always trying to find intentional opportunities to include families. Inviting families on stage to pray over their students is one way we seek to do this.

We also set aside time for families to encourage, pray for, and speak truth over their graduate during the reception. We have heard how busy families are and how thankful they are when we slow things down and provide space for them to intentionally engage with one another. Helping families engage is key and it’s something our graduates will remember for years to come.

Provide a special gift.

Do you remember what your gift was from your church when you graduated (if you got one)?

I think I got a book when I graduated. I’m not sure what the book was and I’m pretty sure it became a doorstop during college. That’s not a shot at my youth pastor at all. I know him and I believe the gift was meant to be thoughtful, but there was no explanation or guidance to it. It was simply “here’s a book.”

I’m fully aware that budgets vary throughout ministries, and I’m not arguing for big or expensive gifts, but rather one that’s thoughtful and personal.

It could be a student’s favorite candy bar and handwritten card. Maybe it is a book inscribed with a personal note and a gift card to Starbucks so the student can share their story with their friends. Perhaps it’s a gift bag with candy, snacks, fun little celebratory gifts, and a special gift for the graduate. The purpose with a gift is to provide something that is special, intentional, personal, and practical.

Planning Ahead: Teaching Calendars

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Welcome to a brand new series called “Planning Ahead.” This series is intentionally designed to help youth workers think through strategically planning for specific events, dates, and bench markers in ministry.

We will talk about fall kickoffs, Christmas parties, Lent, training sessions, and more. Our hope with this series is to provide you with practical steps to help you succeed in ministry by setting benchmarks in planning and sharing insights we have learned along the way.

If your experience starting out in ministry is anything like mine, I wasn’t taught strategic planning. I didn’t know how important it was to plan ahead or build out a teaching calendar. I didn’t see how intentionality wasn’t just intended for teaching and preaching but also in how we structure, prepare for, and implement important events and key programmatic pieces within our ministries.

I’ve learned how important planning ahead is not just for my own sanity but also for our students, families, and volunteers. When we plan ahead we show intentionality, communicate value and worth, help everyone to understand what we are doing and why. We are able to unify under a shared vision and goal.

So with that in mind, today I wanted to share about intentionally building out teaching calendars by answering some common questions surrounding them.

How far in advance should we plan?

When it comes to a teaching calendar, I plan a semester ahead and I typically don’t plan for a whole year. We curate our content for a semester at a time and try to have it finalized months before the next semester rolls around.

That means we typically have our fall teaching calendar finalized around May or June and our spring teaching calendar finalized around October or November. When you plan this far ahead, it allows you to start recruiting teachers, planning for different events, and strategically choosing teaching series.

How do we pick what we will teach?

When I first started in student ministry, I picked topics that I thought were relevant or that sounded cool. Curriculum with catchy titles and graphics were always a win. But we need to think beyond just what will be relevant or “cool” and instead plan with intentionality, purpose, and vision. That means when you are choosing what you will teach, you do so in light of those things as well as choosing relevant and necessary topics.

So plan your teaching around your vision, themes that you’ll focus on in your ministry, and key dates or momentum seasons. You can also begin building a 3, 4, or 7 year curriculum track based on how your program functions. You could choose a 3 year curriculum for middle school and a 4 year curriculum for high school that repeats (with updated changes as needed) to help students move through key life phases and seasons.

What should be included?

This is a question I used to wrestle with when I was younger because I would second guess myself. But here’s the thing: you know your students best and that means you know what they need to hear and be guided in. Trust your instincts and lean into your group dynamics.

But I would also encourage you to pay attention to culture, what Gen Z and Gen Alpha are searching for, and what students are grappling with overall. You can do this by talking to other youth workers, joining online communities, stepping into various cohorts, and following organizations like CPYU, FYI, Barna, others. If you utilize those key pieces to think about what is being taught, you will have a solid teaching calendar.

How many calendars should you have?

Sometimes I see ministries with multiple calendars and frankly that can get confusing. Instead of having multiple calendars, look to simplify down to one. Yes, you may need to have a calendar for families and one for leaders, but trying to simply the amount of calendars also allows your communication to be simplified and concise which provides clarity for everyone.

I won’t lie to you and tell you that if you do all these things that you’ll always hit it out of the park. We all swing and miss at times. But I will tell you that you will see more success and you can fine tune the necessary areas to fully pour into your community.

Embrace Your Facilities Team

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Each of us is acutely aware of what it takes to set up a room, a night of ministry, or a special event. Some ministries have to do their own set up and others have a facilities team that takes care of certain or all aspects of their set up needs.

In my early stages of ministry I was responsible for all types of set up. I was a part-time solo pastor in a tiny church that was comprised of mostly retirees who couldn’t help. That meant I was responsible for all set up on Sundays and any ministry event. Over the years since, that has evolved as we have moved to different churches and each of them have had their own unique experiences with a facilities team.

Often times the individuals responsible for taking care of our facilities and ensuring that events are ready to go can be overlooked. People don’t think about all the work that goes into making Sundays and ministry events happen. We don’t think about bathrooms being stocked, tables and chairs being set up, carpets being vacuumed, doors unlocked, and lights turned on. The reality is that these are just the basic functions that most facility teams handle; many of them handle a litany of other functions.

They are the backbone to our churches and ministries and without them many key aspects of our communities would cease to exist. The sad truth though is that these amazing individuals are often not seen, rarely complimented or thanked, and often spoken about poorly whether directly or indirectly. Typically the only time we think about our facility teams are when we need them.

But what if we actually saw our facility teams and embraced them? What if we helped them to see that they are loved and valued? Imagine if we uplifted and cared for them, highlighting how important they are. That would help our teams, our ministries, and our churches flourish in even greater ways. So what are some ways we can love and care for our facility teams well?

Start by noticing them and saying thank you.

Don’t only say thank you for when they serve you or your ministry. Notice them on busy days, say thank you for how the church works, and stop by their office to share the ways they helped your ministry go well.

Bring them a small thank you gift.

On the cold winter days when they clear the sidewalks and parking lots, bring them some hot cocoa and/or coffee. Stop by with some homemade cookies to thank them for how they set up for your ministry. Bring muffins and coffee in for breakfast for the team; that may mean going to work earlier than normal because most start before anyone else is in the building.

Send them a card or a bunch of cards.

We all know the value of a handwritten card. It makes you feel special, seen, valued, and loved. So why not pen one for your facilities team? Or better yet, why not ask your ministry to write letters? Imagine if all your students and leaders wrote simple thank you notes and you were able to encourage your facilities team that way. What an amazing and encouraging opportunity to help them see that what they are doing matters.

Listen well.

The other day a member of our facilities team needed to talk. I was cleaning up the morning after an event and he came out to help. I’ll be honest: I didn’t want to stay outside to cleanup any longer than I needed to. In central Pennsylvania it’s hot and humid this time of year, and I wanted to get back to my nice, cozy, and cool office.

But I could tell that he had something he needed to share. So I stayed and we talked for over half an hour. It was awesome and super intentional. It was clear he just needed someone to listen and hear him because he felt no one else would. Taking time to stop, engage, and listen to your facilities team will help them know they matter and that you care about them.

Get to know them.

At our church we have handful of facility staff members and a lot of volunteers who serve with them. I’ve intentionally sought to get to know their names and say hello to each of them when I see them. We all know and understand the power and implications of knowing people’s names. When we do that with people who serve our church so well it is an easy way to demonstrate love and care.

Help out.

This is an easy way to embrace the facilities staff in your church. Stepping in and helping to set up or tear down tables and chairs, offering to vacuum or sweep the halls, showing up to help shovel snow, or cleaning the kitchen after an event. These all sound like simple tasks but they quickly pile up and take a lot of hours to accomplish.

By stepping in and helping, you’re giving your facilities team extra margin and showing them that they matter. It does require time and effort on your part, but I can guarantee it will create a deepened relationship and team mentality.

These few ideas are not the only ways that you can love and embrace your facilities team; but they’re an intentional starting point. How do you love and embrace your facilities staff?

Quick Tip: Knowing When to Cancel Programming

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Have you ever had to wrestle with knowing when to cancel programming or even if you should? I’ve worked in a variety of church settings with different perspectives and rationales on this topic. Some advocated for never cancelling, some had specific parameters for when you should, and still others put the choice in ministry leaders’ hands.

Today, my desire is to provide you with some perspective for when you should cancel programming. Granted, this must align with your leadership’s guidance and perspective so this may not be as simple as just cancelling programming. It may entail multiple conversations with leadership prior to ever having to cancel. It may also mean trying to find a middle ground.

This post is simply meant to provide a framework for you and to help alleviate some of the guess work that goes along with cancelling. So when should you cancel programming?

When weather is a factor.

Depending where you live this may not be as big of a deal as it may be for others. Living in places that get snow, have hills, and are prone to drastic temperatures swings has left us having to cancel more than once. This isn’t because we are scared of snow, cold, ice, heavy rain and flooding. It’s because we are being intentional in keeping our students, families, and volunteers safe. If safe travel is an issue and if the weather is being uncooperative, it is best to cancel to keep everyone safe.

Lack of volunteers.

This is not to say that if you don’t have volunteers you can’t have programming. But if you don’t have enough to safely run programming and care well for your students, it may be necessary to suspend programming for that day.

When schools cancel classes and/or activities.

A great metric for cancelling is looking at what schools are doing. Did they close for weather? Was there an early dismissal? Are afternoon and evening activities happening? These are key metrics to help determine if you should cancel programming.

When there’s illness going around.

This is one that you need to keep an eye on because depending on the sickness it could spread quickly in your group. Many of us unfortunately learned this during 2020. But if there’s a stomach bug, the flu, Norovirus, Covid, or really any nasty bug it may be advantageous to cancel programming.

We have done this a few times because we had highly contagious bugs going around and rather than potentially add to the spread (and put our immunocompromised people at greater risk) we have opted to cancel.

Around holidays.

We cancel programming around Christmas and Easter because we know many families are extra busy, spending time with loved ones, and traveling. So from a programmatic standpoint it makes sense to cancel our gatherings. This also affords our volunteers and staff time to catch their breath and be with their loved ones on special days.

Culturally specific reasons.

We live and work in a tourist-heavy economy. This means typically during peak tourist season our locals tend to leave because tourists come in, which directly affects our ministry. Because of that we change how we do ministry in the summer months and suspend normal programming for the sake of summer programming.

You may have similar circumstances for spring break or Christmas break. Or maybe your community has different events and activities throughout each year that pull people away from ministry programming. That may be a reason to cancel.

At the end of the day, the safety and care of your people is paramount. You need to make a judgement call and know that in your heart it’s the best decision you could make. It may not always be the right one, but if you make it for the right reasons you have made the best decision possible.

Quick Tip: To Host or Not to Host a Big Game Party

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Sunday, February 9, is coming. Do you have any plans? What about your ministry or church? Is this a big event for your ministry?

This is a Sunday that I enjoy each year. The commercials, the game, the fellowship, the food, and honestly the conversations that this Sunday fosters just makes it really enjoyable for me. When it comes to ministry on this particular Sunday, I have done it all: I’ve hosted huge outreach events, smaller gatherings, and then just hung out at home with Elise and enjoyed the game together.

None of these are inherently the wrong or right choice. When it comes to your church, your vision, and your community, you know what will work best for your group and ministry.

This isn’t a post to say, “Here’s the right way to do ministry on this specific day.” Instead it is a challenge to think through what is the most effective way to do ministry on this specific day, and how does it align with and strengthen your ministry’s vision?

When we host events like this, we need to think critically about the “why,” “how,” and “what” components. Why are we having this event? How does it align with our vision? How does it help us reach and retain our target demographic? What is its purpose? What makes this event worthwhile? How do we measure a win?

When we step back and critically assess those questions and consider how to best reach our students or church, then we will have an opportunity to reach more people.

I’ll be honest, I’ve moved away from larger gatherings in youth ministry world because we just haven’t seen the reward for the all the work and energy we put into that singular moment. Instead, we encourage small groups to gather together with friends and family and watch the game. That way each group can determine what their time looks like and shape their gathering to best fit their group.

Remember, you’re not trying to find or build a one-size-fits-all event. Instead, allow for organically created moments to build community and relationships.

What does your ministry look like for the big game, and how do you measure the success of that event?

Quick Tip: Gingerbread Houses Remix

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We just had our leader Christmas party this past Saturday and it was a blast! We had wonderful food provided by families in our ministry, we spent a good amount of time in fellowship, we shared stories, and played games. One of the games we did this year was a gingerbread house decorating contest.

Now I’ll be honest: we have done gingerbread houses before for both our leaders and students, and here’s what I learned. It takes a lot of prep time, you need to buy a lot more items for decoration including icing, it takes up a lot of time, it’s messy, and it can be frustrating for different teams or individuals.

So when the idea was floated that we should do it again, I’ll admit, I was skeptical at best. But my teammate shared that she had an idea that would make this go over well and by way less difficult than before. And let me tell you, she was right! Our leaders had a blast doing it and their creativity, story telling, and humor was on full display.

Now I know you’re anxiously wondering what we did, so here it is. We did cardboard gingerbread houses. A quick search on Amazon will bring up a variety of styles, sizes, and purchase options for you to choose from. The ones in the link above came with some decor but we quickly realized it wasn’t enough, so we bought more items to go with them. We purchased pompoms, pipe cleaners, stickers, markers, tiny presents (ones for dollhouses), little trees, and fake snow.

We packed up the unmade houses and supplies into baggies for each team and gave them fifteen minutes to build their houses. We then allowed each team to present their house to the judges and the stories we got for each home were just as unique as each of the houses.

All told, we spent less than $150 for 12 houses and additional supplies. We probably could have spent even less if we had shopped for the supplies at a dollar store, but time was not on our side for that. This is a great alternative to spending lots of money on an activity that could get fairly messy and would require significant prep work. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a fun new, yet timeless, Christmas activity.

Resource: A Fun Christmas Party Activity

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This year at our Christmas Party we are bringing back an activity we took a risk on last year because it paid huge dividends. The activity: decorate your own Christmas t-shirt with the opportunity to win a prize for your small group.

Last year we went with Christmas hoodies but that proved to be cost prohibitive, so this year we switched to t-shirts. The excitement, expectation, and energy this competition created has blown us away, and so we want to share this with you as a resource you could incorporate into your Christmas parties.

The objective: Create a Christmas-themed t-shirt that will impress the judges and allow your team or small group to win the prize.

The rules: Teams or small groups must design and create a Christmas-themed t-shirt using only the elements on their table. They cannot bring in any outside elements. Teams may exchange items with the game host if there are additional items available. Teams will have a set time to create their shirt and when the time ends, a member of the team must be wearing it.

Penalties: Teams lose points for using outside items, not having the shirt on at the end of the build time, having items on the floor (trust us, your facility team will thank you), not listening, or whatever else you’d like there to be penalties for. The judges can choose how many points to deduct for each offense.

Judging: Each person wearing the t-shirt gets 30-60 seconds to present (think runway style) their group’s design and explain why they should win. Judges will confer and choose the team they think has won. Judges can use scorecards to rank the teams in different categories (most unique, most likely made by someone’s grandmom, most over the top, most annoying, etc.) on a scale from 1 to 5. Judges can deduct points throughout the competition for penalties.

Prizes: We decided last year to incorporate a prize that we could reuse each year that would allow students to have a lasting legacy at our Christmas parties. We found an inflatable snowman that we have the winning groups sign with markers. We bring it out each year for everyone to see past winners and for the new winners to sign.

Variants: We are incorporating a new element this year. Teams can win advantages by participating in two additional competitions. The first competition is a lookalike contest where they need to do their best to look like a member of our student ministry team. The winners of that competition receive a golden gift box of extra supplies that only their team can use. The other competition is the team who brings the most first time guests gets a time advantage.

Supplies: We use large or extra large t-shirts with a variety of decorations including bells, tinsel, ornaments, bottle brush trees, fairy lights, jingle bells, pipe cleaners, bows, ribbon, and any other fun dollar store or Amazon items. We also make sure to have glue guns and glue sticks to attach the items, and we found these for a good price on Amazon a year ago. Lastly, we got some multicolored fabric markers to allow teams to draw and write on their shirts. The key is utilizing fun elements that are inexpensive.